“You think there’s something in them?” Ripp asks, but it’s less of a question and more like he’s trying to follow my frantic thoughts. His hands fall away, and he cradles my head between his knees.
“Maybe,” I sigh, looking up at him. “Or maybe there’s nothing up there but ghosts.” I rub my hands down my face. The thought of cracking open the carefully constructed dam around my memories is terrifying, but so is never knowing the truth.
“Will whatever’s in those boxes change the path you’re on now?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Or will it only make the path harder to walk down?” Fuck. I know better than to ask questions I don’t want to know the answer to. It’s like sticking your hand in the fire and expecting to not get burned.
“I…I don’t know.” I close my eyes and bite the corner of my lip. “But thinking about those boxes sitting up there and not knowing will eat me alive just the same.”
Ripp’s arms come down and thread through mine as he scoops me into his lap. I lean my head against his chest. Where his heartbeat should be, there’s only a gentle whooshing sound, like whatever essence keeping him going is swirling just beneath the surface. “Then we’ll go through them, little bug,” he whispers.
I nod into his chest, letting his words comfort me. We’ll go through them. Together.
Sweat rolls down my back,my skin already covered in it and a layer of dust. From the top of the pull-down ladder, I toss the last box from the attic to Ripp. The living room is covered in old, weathered boxes, each of them taunting me with the secrets they might hold. There are so many more than I remembered. I don’t know where to start.
Ripp nudges one with his foot, staring down at it with disgust. I raise an eyebrow at him questioningly. “Start with this one,” he grunts. I climb down the ladder and carefully make my way across the floor, sitting gently next to it. My body moves like it’s trying to keep a bomb in the package from going off.
“Why this one?” I say, tapping the top. There’s nothing about it that sticks out more than the others. Past me didn’t do future me any favors by not labeling the outsides. At the time, I didn’t care what was in them. I just wanted everything gone.
“It smells disgusting.” Ripp cringes and acts offended by a scent I can’t smell. I sniff the air over the box warily. Nothing but dust and mildew fills my nose. I open the top, expecting a monster to leap out of it, but again, nothing.
I take out the contents one by one, setting them on the floor—old documents, family photos, a small decorative box, a flannel shirt. It’s obvious when I packed this one, I was haphazardly tossing things in. The last item in the box is the strangest: a piece of silver antler. The ridges that trail through the bone look like they’re filled with black ink. It’s beautiful. Haunting.
Ripp slashes through the silence with a guttural snarl, causing me to almost leap straight out of my skin. The antler falls from my hand and skitters across the floor. Ripp leaps over me and snatches it up. My eyes go wide, watching him cradle it uncharacteristically in his arms. “This changes everything,” he growls, so low and deep, I feel his words vibrate in my bones.
The air shifts around him in violent swirls of shadow. Trembles wrench through my body hard enough for my teeth to chatter. My muscles beg me to run, but I’m frozen in place. A huge set of antlers pierces through the tornado of darkness in front of me as piercing eyes, like blue embers, open, and I swear, they sear straight through my soul. A torrent of demonic growls echoes around me, bouncing off every wall. Pressure builds behind my eyes, and I feel a sharp tug as they try to roll back. I strain against my eyelids, forcing them to stay open as I push to stay focused on thethinghe has become.
My mouth hangs open, and I realize I’m screaming, the noise mixing seamlessly with his. “Ri-Ri-Ripp,” I sputter. “Please. Pl-ease. Stop.” As soon as I get the last word out, the shadows fall around him. His human form stands before me again, his chest heaving and his face stone. The black of his eyes fades back to normal, and his expression shifts as he takes in my face.
What the fuck just happened?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ripp
Tremors linger in my muscles from the rapid transformation. The tips of my fingers twitch, and my human skin itches, like it’s been stretched too tight. I roll my shoulders, continuing down through my back, trying to relieve the tension. My fist clenches around the relic. Feeling it against my palm stokes the fire inside me, threatening to reignite, but I push the urge down until it’s just a smoldering pile of ash. Right as I was about to lose control, her voice came through the fog. She called my name, used it to command me. Does she know what she’s done? What kind of power she actually wields?
Mattie’s eyes are still wild, every muscle tense, waiting for me to make my next move. My magic in the vial around her neck pulses in time with her frantic heartbeat. Seeing she’s even still conscious is a sign that her shadows have taken over most of her body. With another exposure to my true nature, I’ve shortened her countdown further, not knowing that the thread of her life was already too thin. I also didn’t expect there to be a fucking relic hidden in her tiny cabin.
“What is it?” she asks, her voice barely audible. Her eyes drift to the piece of antler in my hand before meeting mine again. The wild look has vanished from them; concern fills her emerald pools instead.
“This,” I say, extending my arm and opening my palm, “is a relic, an item of great magic—ancient magic. This one in particular is from one of my kind.”
A tiny gasp escapes her lips, and she quickly throws her hand in front of her mouth. “It’s a piece of you? Like it broke off?” Her eyes scan the top of my head, as if she can still see my antlers there and is assessing them for damage.
“No.” I shake my head and close my palm. The relic dissolves, becoming a swirling shadow under my skin. Mattie’s eyes go wide again, but she stays silent. “This one is not from me. There’s nothing a human could offer that would be worth this type of sacrifice.”
Except there is. My eyes drift to the vial again, and my eyebrows knit together. Her hand comes up to clench the vial and twirls it mindlessly between her fingers. As she does so, she scrunches her nose, looking so fucking adorable, I almost forget about the conversation we’re having. I continue to admire how fucking pretty she looks below me until her voice breaks me from the spell. “So it has to be given?”
“Well,” I flash a wicked grin, “you could try to take it, but there wouldn’t be much left of you afterward. Only we can break pieces of ourselves off to use as relics, or for magic.” I nod to the vial around her neck. “But the larger the piece, the more tangible it is, the greater the cost.”
Mattie cocks her head to the side, and I can see her working through everything she just learned. She sucks in her lips between her teeth and stares at the ceiling. I take a seat next to her, allowing our legs to touch. Even through my pants, I can feel the coldness of her skin. I stare at her like I’ll be able to find a clock counting down somewhere on her body.
Resentment for the witch and her lack of detail floods my system. I wonder if she knew of the existence of the relic. If she did, it makes it far more frustrating that she didn’t offer that bit of information. What did Mattie’s family choose to sacrifice for such a powerful object? My eyes narrow, and I stare at her again. No. I shake my head. They wouldn’t.
“A cost?” Mattie asks, reaching for the closest box to pull it to her. Tension consumes the space between us. She pauses to sigh dramatically before opening the box. I don’t blame her. Anything could be lurking underneath the cardboard, waiting to shatter more of her reality.
“Yes, everything has a cost. No exchange of power comes without burden.” I reach for her hand and squeeze it gently. I’m hoping she comes to the same conclusion without me having to spell it out for her, but she just gazes unblinkingly into the box. She pulls her hand from mine and starts to unpack the contents. This one has newspaper articles, aged folders full of photos that don’t look like family portraits, and a small leather book. Mattie quickly flips through the book, and I can see it’s filled with handwritten pages. She quickly closes it and sets it on the floor.
Mattie’s mouth falls open in a yawn, and she leans her head against my arm. The box is finally empty, but she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to look through the items scattered on the floor. “I’m tired, Ripp.” Her voice is soft, full of a heaviness I wish I could relieve.
